SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/1/2017
7:23 AM
My Worship Time
Focus: The Motive
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts 1:9-11
Message of the
verses: “9 And after He had said
these things, He was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received
Him out of their sight. 10 And as they were gazing intently into the sky while
He was going, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them. 11 They also
said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus,
who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as
you have watched Him go into heaven."”
I suppose that the event that we are reading about was
one that the disciples would never forget, for after being with the Lord Jesus
Christ for three years and listening to His man talks to them, especially the
ones that He spoke to them about returning to heaven after His work on earth
was completed, that they knew in their hearts that this day would come. I think about Elisha who knew the day that
the Lord was going to take Elijah to heaven and how he would not leave him
until he saw him leave to go to heaven.
I think of Enoch who walked with God and one day God took him to heaven
to be with Him without dying. Both of these
men never died, yet Jesus did die, die for our sins as that is the way that God
had planned from eternity past to save us, and not as we have read and studied
in John 17:1-6 Jesus was going back to be with His Father and sit on the throne
next to Him that He may begin His ministry of being our High Priest as He no intercedes
for us and prays for us, and oh how we all need that.
Jesus was standing on the Mount of Olives and when He
returns at His second coming which is prophesied in the book of Zechariah 14:4 “In
that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of
Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle from
east to west by a very large valley, so that half of the mountain will move
toward the north and the other half toward the south.” We
also see in Revelation 19 that He will return to this same place and when His
foot rests on the Mount of Olives.
The disciples saw a cloud receive Him as He went back to
heaven and this also reminds me of a part of His second coming, which we call
the Rapture of the church. Paul writes
that the Lord will return in the clouds and call His bride, the church to Him. “16 For the Lord Himself will descend from
heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of
God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and
remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so
we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these
words (1 Thessalonians 4:16-18).”
There is another thing that perhaps were on the disciples
mind that John MacArthur writes of and that is that perhaps they were thinking
of what is written in Ezekiel 10:18-19 which says “18 Then the glory of the
LORD departed from the threshold of the temple and stood over the cherubim. 19
When the cherubim departed, they lifted their wings and rose up from the earth
in my sight with the wheels beside them; and they stood still at the entrance
of the east gate of the LORD’S house, and the glory of the God of Israel
hovered over them.” This passage in
Ezekiel speaks of the glory of the Lord departing from the temple which
happened sometime before that Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and the temple in
August of 586 B. C. However this was different when the Lord went back to
heaven for in this case they were not loosing Jesus which is what the word
translated “looking indicates.”
MacArthur writes that this words “indicates a long gaze, in this case a
transfixed look as if losing someone.
The question then, is a mild rebuke to the apostles. They were not losing Jesus, as they feared.” As mentioned the disciples had heard Jesus’
High Priestly prayer in John 17:1-6 which tells of His going back to be with
His Father and to intercede for them in heaven, along with us too who are all
believers in Jesus Christ.
We have written about how no one knows when Jesus will
return in a previous SD and stated that we should therefore all be ready each
day for His return, to live our lives in a way each and every day so that we
will not be ashamed when our Lord returns finding us doing something that we
should not be doing.
John MacArthur concludes this first chapter in his
commentary on the first 12 chapters of the book of Acts by writing:
“The task of finishing the
work that Jesus began, the duty of evangelizing the lost world, is the daunting
one. But the Lord in His mercy from the
start has provided all the spiritual resources necessary to accomplish that
task. It is up to each believer to
appropriate those resources and put them to use. ‘We must work the works of Him who sent us
[Jesus Christ], as long as it is day; night is coming, when no man can work’
(John 9:4).”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: To remember that
my High Priest and also the Holy Spirit, and others are praying for me so that
I can do the things that are pleasing to the Lord.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
John 9:4.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Four.”
Today’s Bible
question: “Out of what did God make the
first woman?”
Answer in our next SD.
7/1/2017 8:04 AM
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